Now, ahead of a planned rebranding to Kioxia and on the tail of a share buyback programme, TMC is splashing the cash to pick up the solid-state storage business of Lite-On Technology for £134.6 million.

'Lite-On's solid state drive business is a natural and strategic fit with Toshiba Memory and expands our focus in the SSD industry,' claims Nobuo Hayasaka, acting President and CEO of Toshiba Memory Holding Corporation, the full name of TMC's holding company. 'This is an exciting acquisition for us, as it positions us to meet the projected growth in demand for SSDs in PCs and data centres being driven by the increased use of cloud services.'

The deal is expected to close in the first half of 2020, subject to the usual regulatory clearances.